Acts 23:31

31 So the soldiers, according to their instructions, took Paul and brought him by night to Antip'atris.

Acts 23:31 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 23:31

Then the soldiers, as it was commanded them, took Paul,
&c.] Out of the castle, and put him upon a beast, as the chief captain had ordered the centurions, and they had directed the soldiers to do:

and brought him by night to Antipatris:
they set out from Jerusalem at the third hour, or about nine o'clock at night, and travelled all night, and by break of day came to Antipatris; a city which lay in the road from Jerusalem to Caesarea: it was built by Herod the great, in the best soil of his kingdom, enriched with rivers and woods F20; and was so called by him, in memory of his father Antipater; it before went by the name of Chabar Zaba F21, or Capharsaba; the Jewish writers place it in the utmost borders of the land of Judea F23; hence that phrase so often used by them, from Gebath to Antipatris F24, in like sense as from Dan to Beersheba, these two places being the utmost borders of the land; here it was that Simon the just, with some of the principal inhabitants of Jerusalem, met Alexander the great, who travelled all night, as these soldiers with Paul did, and came to Antipatris at sun rising {y}. It was forty two miles from Jerusalem. It was in the road from Judea to Galilee, as appears from the following canon of the Jews, concerning divorces F26;

``if a husband says to his wife, lo, this is thy divorce, if I do not come thirty days hence, and he goes from Judea to Galilee, and comes to Antipatris and returns, it becomes void:''

the way from Jerusalem to Caesarea lay through Nicopolis, Lydda, Antipatris, and Betthar; from Jerusalem to Nicopolis, according to the old Jerusalem Itinerary F1, were twenty two miles; from thence to Lydda, ten miles; and from Lydda to Antipatris ten more (which make forty two miles, as before observed); and from Antipatris to Betthar ten miles, and from thence to Caesarea, sixteen more: so that when the apostle was at Antipatris, he had twenty six miles more to go to Caesarea; and hence it appears, that the length of the journey from Jerusalem to Caesarea was sixty eight miles; though Josephus F2 makes the distance to be six hundred furlongs, or seventy five miles: and that the way from the one to the other lay through the places before mentioned, may be illustrated from what the same writer says, of some persons travelling from Caesarea to Jerusalem; so he relates F3, concerning Quadratus governor of Syria, that from Tyre he came to Caesarea, from Caesarea to Lydda, and from Lydda to Jerusalem; and of Cestius the Roman general, he says F4, that from Caesarea he came to Antipatris, and from Antipatris to Lydda, and from Lydda to Jerusalem, which clearly seems to be the same road the apostle went; and so Jerom F5, in the account he gives of the journey of Paula, says, that she came to Caesarea, where she saw the house of Cornelius, the cottage of Philip, and the beds of the four virgin prophetesses; and from thence to Antipatris, a little town half pulled down, which Herod called after his father's name; and from thence to Lydda, now Diospolis, famous for the resurrection of Dorcas, and the healing of Aeneas. Antipatris is, by Ptolomy F6, placed at the west of Jordan, and is mentioned along with Gaza, Lydda, and Emmaus; some take it to be the same with Capharsalama, mentioned in:

``Nicanor also, when he saw that his counsel was discovered, went out to fight against Judas beside Capharsalama:'' (1 Maccabees 7:31)

and others say, it is the same that is since called Assur or Arsuf, a town on the sea coast, which is not likely, since it does not appear that Antipatris was a maritime city. The apostle could not now stay to preach the Gospel in this place, nor do we elsewhere read or hear of a Gospel church state in it, until the "fifth" century; when it appears F7 there was a church here, and Polychronius was bishop of it, who was present at the council of Chalcedon, held in the year 451; and in the "eighth" century there were many Christians dwelt here, for in the year 744 there were many of them killed by the Arabians.


FOOTNOTES:

F20 Josephus De Bello Jud. l. 1. c. 21. sect 9.
F21 Ib. Antiqu. l. 13. c. 15. sect. 1. & l. 16. c. 5. sect. 2.
F23 Bartenora in Misn. Gittin, c. 7. sect. 7.
F24 T. Hieros. Taanioth, fol. 69. 2. & Megilia, fol. 70. 1. & T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 62. 2. & Sanhedrin, fol. 94. 2. Shirhashirim Rabba, fol. 18. 2. & Juchasin, fol. 108. 1. & Jarchi in Eccl. xi. 6.
F25 T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 69. 1.
F26 Misn. Gittin, c. 7. sect. 7.
F1 Apud Reland. Palestina Illustrata, l. 2. c. 4. p. 417.
F2 De Bello Jud. l. 1. c. 3. sect. 5.
F3 Ib. l. 2. c. 12. sect. 5, 6.
F4 Ib. c. 19. sect. 1.
F5 Epitaph. Paulae, fol. 59. A.
F6 Geograph. l. 5. c. 16.
F7 Vid. Reland. Palestina Ilustrata, l. 3. p. 569, 570.

Acts 23:31 In-Context

29 I found that he was accused about questions of their law, but charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment.
30 And when it was disclosed to me that there would be a plot against the man, I sent him to you at once, ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have against him."
31 So the soldiers, according to their instructions, took Paul and brought him by night to Antip'atris.
32 And on the morrow they returned to the barracks, leaving the horsemen to go on with him.
33 When they came to Caesare'a and delivered the letter to the governor, they presented Paul also before him.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.